Alto Orinoco Municipality () is one of the seven
municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
(
municipio
A ' () or ' () is an administrative division in several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. It is often translated as "municipality." It comes from ''mūnicipium'' (), meaning a township.
In English, a municipality often is define ...
s) that make up the southern
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
n state of
Amazonas and, according to the 2011 census by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality has a population of 12,687. The
shire town
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equivalent term, shire town, is used in ...
of Alto Orinoco is
La Esmeralda.
[http://www.ocei.gov.ve/secciones/division/Amazonas.zip ]
History
After the dissolution of the Spanish Commission of Territorial Limits by order of the Crown in 1760, Iturriaga and Solano returned to Spain and presented to the Court a series of proposals to ensure Spanish control over their possessions of
Orinoco
The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
and
Río Negro. Out of these proposals came the decision to create separate commands. On March 17, 1767, Diez de la Fuente arrived in Esmeralda accompanied by 60 Spaniards and the caciques Wadena and Wasaha, who led a group of 3,000 natives. With this, the redevelopment of Esmeralda commenced.
The municipality is recognized as a territorial division by the government of
Antonio Guzmán Blanco
Antonio Leocadio Guzmán Blanco (28 February 1829 – 28 July 1899) was a Venezuelan military leader, statesman, diplomat and politician. He was the president of Venezuela for , from 1870 until 1877, from 1879 until 1884, and from 1886 until 1 ...
on December 10, 1880, of what is now the Amazonas State.
Demographics
The Alto Orinoco Municipality, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, has a population of 17,797 (up from 15,281 in 2000). This amounts to 12.5% of the state's population. The municipality's population density is .
Government
The mayor of the Alto Orinoco Municipality is Jaime Turon, re-elected on October 31, 2004, with 40% of the vote.
The municipality is divided into five
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
es: Capital Alto Orinoco, Huachamacare, Marawaka, Mavaca, and Sierra Parima. Prior to December 18, 1997, Alto Orinoco Municipality had only one parish.
References
External links
altoorinoco-amazonas.gov.ve
Municipalities of Amazonas (Venezuelan state)
{{AmazonasVE-geo-stub